Enter disclaiming.

 

In whatever context, “best of” and similar lists have customarily prompted little if any interest in these precincts for various reasons. That said, perversely, what follows anoints the ten most noteworthy ongoing comic book series of 2011 in the views of “Rude Chapbooks,” PLAYBACK:stl’s prolix, pompous weekly column focused on floppies.

 

During the year just past, the single-spaced 12-point printout of such floppies purchased for potential assessment in that column—no comp lists support and/or subvert “Rude Chapbooks”—topped two dozen pages and a thousand individual comics. Even though the average human being reads nary a thousand comics in his or her lifetime, that printout hints at an abiding objection to exercises like this: its exclusivity. In this or that art form, that is, a given reviewer or critic, no matter how conscientious, can analyze only a fractional output. To cite three integral influences on “Rude Chapbooks,” dear reader, the daunting John Clute probably never studies more than a limited number of book-length fantasies and science fictions during a given year; the late, great Pauline Kael undoubtedly never screened every film lensed during her tenure as The New Yorker’s cineaste at large; and the magisterial Greil Marcus likely never listens to more than a paltry percentage of the music (popular or otherwise) recorded during any 12-month period. Caveat lector, therefore, constitutes the fundamental rule here.

 

In coverage of comics at the moment, of course, a rule nearly as fundamental involves the shotgun impersonation of fanboy opinion for the cool, high-caliber fire of the critical sniper. (Newsarama, in particular, specializes in such nonsense with daily, multiple “top 10” slideshows transparently designed to inflate clickthroughs for the website.) In that respect, in observance of whatever here remains of valid objective-versus-subjective quantification, a few provisos demand statement regarding this “Rude Chapbooks” attaboy:

 

 

That said, before the naming of the ten most noteworthy ongoing comic book series of the past year, please pardon the observation of a few trends, for good or for ill, in 2011:

 

 

Aaaaalrighty, then! Having by now culled the readership of this particular column from the low teens to PLAYBACK:stl’s dauntless comics editor and the newborn on his knee—and perhaps only Baby Green at that—“Rude Chapbooks” ends the top tension by detailing, in alphabetic order, the most noteworthy ongoing comics of 2011:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

·      Unambitious? Scarcely. Undiversified? Get real. Unhailed? By no means! The Unwritten achieves the unthinkable in this increasingly unthinking era: it glamorizes, with glee, both literature and literacy. Springboarding from the phenomenal popularity of J.K. Rowling, this Vertigo contemporary fantasy amalgamates Facebook and Twitter and so forth with Frankenstein and Moby-Dick, inarguably two of the least likely novels ever to appeal to a putative readership limited to a 140-character attention span. Writer Mike Carey and main artist Peter Gross here follow their laudable Lucifer with the tale of reluctant “wizard” Tom/Tommy Taylor, which, incidentally, in the personage of Lizzie Hexam, boasts the mainstream’s sexiest heroine. So addictive it rivals Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens for impact—the D.E.A. should be investigating The Unwritten. | Bryan A. Hollerbach